The SC Times reports that poor or limited sleep may cost billions of dollars per year.
By some estimates, lack of sleep costs a whole lot of money: Hundreds of billions of dollars are spent and/or lost annually as a result of poor or limited sleep, according to the Institute of Medicine Committee on Sleep Medicine and Research, part of the National Institutes of Health.
There’s the obvious. Daytime sleepiness, inadequate sleep time, insomnia and other sleep disorders burden the health care system.
Indirect costs include sickness and death, absenteeism from work and school, disability, loss of productivity, industrial accidents, motor vehicle accidents, hospitalization and increased alcohol consumption. (Some, wrongly, use alcohol as a sleep aid.)
